Audionova

Virtual IT Platform foundation for faster growth at Audionova

VMware vSOM enables Audionova to make optimum use of its virtual platform and quickly adapt to new requirements. The company also uses VMware Horizon Mirage to roll out upgrades and new software to its 1,300 shops across Europe. Audionova now has a full understanding of its virtual environment and can therefore respond quickly to new developments. In addition to providing extra effciency, this approach also yields significant savings on hardware and management costs. Despite this central IT approach, the company is able to roll out software and updates for all of its shops in Europe in one go. This means that everyone within the organization is working with the latest version and that customers can rest assured the hearing tests are reliable and that their hearing aids are always optimally configured.

The VMware VMworld Mobile App

The VMworld organizing team wanted a best in class mobile app that would enable the best possible experience for conference attendees. They wanted an app that would set new benchmarks for ease of information access, personalized communication, real-time content delivery, and user engagement. The app also needed to be radically scalable, secure, and easy to integrate with on-premises corporate information systems and cloud-based services. Raw Engineering met the challenge by building a new mobile app with its built-io mobile backend-as-a-service platform and the VMware® vCloud® Air™ platform.

VIF International Education

VMware vCloud Air at VIF International Education

VIF International Education, headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, provides an exchange program for international educators who want to teach in the United States, and offers educational programs and resources to develop global citizens. When usage for its Learning Center platform grew from 1,500 to more than 8,000 users in one year, the platform experienced outages and bandwidth issues that impacted the user experience. By migrating to vCloud Air, the platform has 99.999 percent availability, providing a consistent experience for teachers, while using only one-third of the compute resources as the on-premises facilities.

“Our goal is to provide International education and experience s to students everywhere regardless of their background or location and to do this, we need to find very scalable programs that we can build that can expand broadly across large territories and school districts and countries and to connect these students with teachers all around the world in a way that is scalable, user friendly and efficient and cost effective and we have to have a partner that can grow with us and that’s why we are excited about our partnership with VMware.”

— Mark Haney, Senior Systems Engineer, VIF International Education

Video

Karunya University

University in India delivers virtual desktop infrastructure to attract the brightest and the best students, and to succeed in a competitive market

Karunya University is a fully residential university located at Siruvani in southern India, close to the city of Coimbatore. It serves around 8,000 students and has a teaching faculty of more than 450, and around 250 members of staff. The university is best known for its engineering, management and science-based study programs and offers undergraduate courses as well as postgraduate and PhD level tuition. The university is meeting students' IT expectations and has successfully reduced desktop infrastructure management by adoption VMware Horizon.

“Karunya University can continue to develop and attract some our country’s brightest students safe in the knowledge that we have a scalable and reliable VDI from VMware, to meet their needs.”

City of Avondale

City of Avondale Establishes Business Continuity and Protection for Critical Services with vCloud Air Disaster Recovery and vSphere

After implementing a hybrid cloud solution based on vSphere, the city of Avondale determined that it was positioned to take a major leap with its backup and disaster strategy. The city had local backup services for fast recovery. However, it had aims for a regionally separate disaster recovery site in case of a major catastrophic event in the Phoenix Metropolitan area. City staff saw emerging as-a-service options as a means to allow Avondale to achieve its business resumption goals at a level of cost and ease unavailable in the past.

“We reached our goal of 70 percent virtualization in just over a year within a year of using vSphere. VMware continuously advances its technology and provides options that allow us to build onto its solutions. As a CIO, that's critical when looking at strategic investments.”

— Rob Lloyd, CIO, City of Avondale

Video

Video 2

Video 3

Transact Payment System

Cloud Based Disaster Recovery is Changing how VMware Customers do Business

Have you ever wondered how a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy could be implemented in the cloud? What applications can you protect in the cloud? Can you simplify your environment at a lower cost? What are the core benefits achieved as a result of implementing disaster recovery in the cloud, verses an on-premises solution? On March 25th, 2015 8.00 am PST, we hosted a Google+ Hangout event featuring VMware experts and our customers as they provide a technical deep-dive into the VMware vCloud Air Disaster Recovery service. They shared some of the challenges they faced as well as best practices for solutions to those challenges and ways the service has helped their various businesses.

“The cost difference between doing it yourself versus hosting it on VMware was really something that was attractive to us. And it only took us about six months from the day I joined The Hut Group to the day that we were able to stand up and test a fully functioning website. We never failed a production but we were able to replicate the full production databases out of the full production website and to do that within 6 months makes me feel very good but it also gave the executives comfort that they knew that we now had a solution which would be useful and known when we came to have a disaster.”

The Hut Group

Cloud Based Disaster Recovery is Changing how VMware Customers do Business

Have you ever wondered how a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy could be implemented in the cloud? What applications can you protect in the cloud? Can you simplify your environment at a lower cost? What are the core benefits achieved as a result of implementing disaster recovery in the cloud, verses an on-premises solution? On March 25th, 2015 8.00 am PST, we hosted a Google+ Hangout event featuring VMware experts and our customers as they provide a technical deep-dive into the VMware vCloud Air Disaster Recovery service. They shared some of the challenges they faced as well as best practices for solutions to those challenges and ways the service has helped their various businesses.

“The cost difference between doing it yourself versus hosting it on VMware was really something that was attractive to us. And it only took us about six months from the day I joined The Hut Group to the day that we were able to stand up and test a fully functioning website. We never failed a production but we were able to replicate the full production databases out of the full production website and to do that within 6 months makes me feel very good but it also gave the executives comfort that they knew that we now had a solution which would be useful and known when we came to have a disaster.”

Synergent

Synergent Taps VMware NSX for Micro- Segmentation and IT Automation in the Software-Defined Data Center

Synergent created a cloud-based multi-tenant environment built on VMware vCloud Suite Advanced and deploy VMware NSX to virtualize its network.

“Given our work in the financial sector, security is very important to us, and the ability to do micro-segmentation was critical to our selection of VMware NSX,” says Jackson. “We explored doing this at the hardware level, but quickly realized it was not feasible. The proven success of the NSX platform, and the integration of other industry leaders such as Arista Networks and Palo Alto Networks, helped solidify our decision.”

TiAuto (Pty) Ltd.

Full visibility, improved performance and ability to further sweat IT assets

TiAuto was looking for a system that would enable it to deploy a charge back functionality across all of its seven divisions. It needed a system that would give the IT team a view of what each department was running, how much hardware they were using and in short summarize if the systems / servers it had in place were in fact healthy. After rolling out vSOM, the company had an instant view of its some 120 virtual machines and the benefits to the business were immediate as the TiAuto IT department could instantly identify which machines hadn’t been provisioned properly as well as where there was fault or capacity in its systems which could then be optimized.

“vSOM has been fantastic for the business as we can now benefit from adding more virtual machines on what we already have as we can resize our existing environment without running the risk of oversizing the storage. From a management perspective IT can now provide our executive team a visual report that shows them exactly how much hardware we use across the group. It goes as granular as defining what each hardware component is doing and in turn we can justify what we need and can qualify each infrastructural investment.”

KBC

A Trusted Advisor from VMware Professional Services Supports KBC

KBC needed a single point of contact to help support the careful planning of their virtualization program and to help maintain their mission-critical production systems. The Bank considers it important that there is a resource supporting the technology they purchase. They require access to Product Management and other VMware resources with someone on hand to guide them and make sure they have a voice within VMware. To meet these needs, they invested in the Technical Account Manager (TAM) Service.

“As a finance company, we want to know what we’re running in our data centers. Our VMware specialist goes deep into the VMware technologies, and we don’t want to make any compromises. When we are stuck in our design, when we have issues in test or production, when we want information on new tools or have new ideas, our TAM is our advocate, our helper and our solution provider.”

Fujitsu TDS GmbH

Market advantage through virtualization

As a complete IT service provider and SAP system consultant, Fujitsu TDS GmbH, a subsidiary of the Fujitsu Group, offers medium-sized and large companies a wide variety of data centre services. In addition to IT outsourcing and application management, the focus of their services is on SAP. This includes certified SAP consulting and SAP hosting as well as SAP-based industry solutions and templates, and in-memory computing with SAP HANA. The portfolio also includes private cloud services, which Fujitsu provides from their own highly secure data centres in Germany. Well-known customers in the automotive, retail and processing industries, as well as banks and insurance companies, rely on its independent, competent support. Fujitsu manages the specific quality and security requirements of a variety of industries thanks to continuous further development. Its great capacity for implementation and its optimum results are based on the high qualifications of its IT consultants. To provide our customers with an optimum SAP infrastructure, it's essential that, in terms of technology, we always stay a step ahead of the competition. For this reason Fujitsu counted on virtualisation of SAP Sybase ASE with VMware vSphere.

"To provide our customers with an optimum SAP infrastructure, it's essential that, in terms of technology, we always stay a step ahead of the competition. With SAP virtualisation with VMware, that's exactly what we've done."

California Natural Resources Agency

A Briefings Direct podcast on how a large state agency is harnessing virtualization to do more with less and remain agile and efficient.

“We consider VMware a strategic partner. We basically only want to work with business partners. We don’t want to work with vendors, because we don’t need someone to sell us something and walk away. VMware has been hand-in-hand with us for this whole journey.”

“From looking at VMware, virtualization is the standard. If you don’t take it on, then you really won’t be able to respond to business needs. When the official IT organization becomes obsolete, there are going to be ad-hoc IT organizations and those would become the norm. If you want to be relevant, you have to use every tool set that you can to provide the business needs.”

— Michael Hom, Data Center Chief in the IT InfrastructureServices Branch for the California Department of Water Resources

VIF International Education and VMware

User traffic on VIF International Education's Learning Center, an online professional development platform for K–12 educators, grew by more than 500 percent in one year, but its on-premises IT infrastructure couldn’t keep up. This mission-critical service was running on a single server blade without power or network redundancy, leading to unacceptably high downtime. By moving to the VMware vCloud® Air™ platform, VIF gained vastly higher availability and near-unlimited scalability, improved resource utilization by 300 percent, and reduced its IT systems management workload.

VIF International Education builds global education programs that prepare teachers and students for success in an interconnected world. Based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the firm supports teachers, schools, and school districts with programs for professional development and curriculum, language acquisition, and cultural exchange. VIF is proud to be a B Corp, certified to meet specific standards for social and environmental performance. VIF is dedicated to developing globally competent citizens with the skills to thrive in an increasingly global marketplace.

“VMware vCloud Air represents for us the opportunity to deliver on our mission to deliver global education for all.”

— David Young, CEO, VIF International Education

Video

Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support

Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS) is a key driver of innovation across GP surgeries and health centres throughout the region. YHCS wanted to provide greater flexibility for GPs and clinicians to enhance both patient and GP experience. The YHCS IT team chose VMware Horizon 6 to deliver Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and the ability for GPs to access clinical applications from any location. The solution has transformed patient experience and GPs’ work/life balance whilst reducing the cost of desktop PCs.

“VMware Horizon 6 has been transformative on many levels. Enabling our GPs to access applications from any internet connected device means they can treat patients from the comfort of their own home, with the same speed and efficiency as if they were in the surgery.”

Video

Kingston University

Kingston University to transform student learning experience with mobile working and BYOD using VMware® Horizon™ 6 and Atlantis

As part of a campaign to position itself as the university of choice for today’s increasingly tech-savvy market, Kingston University is now using VMware Horizon 6 to transform the way IT services are delivered to its students and staff members. By allowing access to course materials and graphic intensive applications remotely and from any device, Kingston University has allowed its staff and students to work and study in the way which best suits them.

Additionally, the university has been able to manage its 7,000 physical desktops from a central management console, drastically cutting the time it takes to provide software updates including major operating system upgrades (Windows XP to Windows 7), bug fixes, repairs and full system recovery. The IT team is also able to start-up and recover individual desktops in less than a quarter of the time previously taken, enabling Kingston to devote IT resources towards innovative new projects. This VDI environment is supported by Atlantis’ virtualized storage solution, ILIO to ensure optimum performance of the virtual PCs.

“Technology is absolutely essential for both attracting students and ensuring they have the best academic experience. We strongly believe that universities have to constantly evolve their entire technology offering - from infrastructure and networking, to the applications they make available and how they are accessed - if they are going to remain competitive and meet the expectations of new and prospective students. VMware Horizon 6 allows us to give students the freedom to work from any location – whether that is on campus or at home – while still being able to access their university desktop, complete with all the applications they need for their course. With VMware Horizon, I believe Kingston University offers one of the country’s most complete and compelling access to learning environments in the UK.”

“We estimate that each educational institution that joins our cloud can potentially cut its annual IT spending by 30 to 50 percent, freeing up money for other important educational needs while getting tighter security and data protection.”

— Jason Radford, Head of Cloud Operations, IlliniCloud/Bloomington School District

Fastweb

Fastweb taps into new market opportunities, achieving 100% ROI within the first year while reducing the Total Cost of Ownership of Virtual Desktops with VMware Horizon Air

With revenues in excess of €1.5m and nearly two million customers, Fastweb is the largest alternative operator of fixed-line telecommunications and ICT solutions in Italy. Fastweb delivers business value added services such as cloud computing, security and converging communications to residential and business customers.

“Previously, when a customer asked for virtual desktops, we would need to set up their own physical infrastructure and configure the necessary software, which was very costly and time intensive; so much so that many SMBs could not see the financial advantage of virtual desktops. However by delivering through VMware Horizon Air we can provide desktops ‘on-demand’ with businesses only paying for what they need and when they need it. Multi-tenancy is a must for successful cloud delivery and partnering with VMware therefore became essential to achieving this.”

Columbia Sportswear

A Briefings Direct podcast on how a major sportswear company has leveraged virtualization and hybrid cloud to reap substantial business benefits.

“With our business changing and growing as quickly as it is, and with us doing business and selling directly to consumers in over a hundred countries around the world, our data centers have to be adaptable. Our data and our applications have to be secure and available, no matter where we are in the world, whether you're on network or off-premises. The SDDC has been a game-changer for us. It’s allowed to take those technologies, host them where we need them, and with whatever cost configuration makes sense, whether it’s in the cloud or on-premises, and deliver the solutions that our business needs”

DIRECTV

The DIRECTV Latin America leadership team wanted a way to break down geographical communication barriers and facilitate information sharing across the region. Socialcast made it easier to share best practices, find answers fast, and align executives and employees.

“I find Socialcast to be a highly effective communication tool for a global workforce.”

Perforce Software

Perforce Software experiences flexibility, cost savings, and faster time to market with vCloud Air

Perforce software is used to manage teams of developers and their software and hardware products across all industries. Ed Horst and David Ackerman describe the deployment and use of vCloud Air and how that benefits their global customers.

“One of the unique things about vCloud Air is their willingness to setup SLAs or guaranteed ability of that system for the ones that are running in the vCloud Air environment. That’s critical to us. It’s hugely critical to our customers. Many of them will walk away from cloud options around that issue alone.”